Now, Beckman and his purple-clad team are eyeing an even larger prize when the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello season concludes in Southern California on Nov. 13, a second NHRA Funny Car world championship.
"When we won Chicago early this year, I didn't feel optimal and yet we won the race," Beckman said of his team's only win this season in July. "I keep a log book on the cars performance and my performance. My mental focus wasn't great and we won the race. I got up this morning with every reason to believe we were going to win this race. A great night's sleep, good concentration, great focus until one-and-a-half feet into the run and the car did something that baffled us. We weren't trying to be aggressive. We were trying to race smart. Hopefully that is out of the way so it doesn't bite us in the Countdown."
Beckman's weekend couldn't have started much better Friday evening under the lights at the famed Indianapolis strip. After participating in the 11th annual DSR Open House that raised more than $70,000 for Riley Hospital for Children, Beckman's Jimmy Prock-tuned Dodge clocked the second quickest pass of the weekend at 3.859 seconds to qualify the Infinite Hero team in the No. 2 position.
On the rare Monday race day, Beckman's Infinite Hero flopper barely rotated the tires before losing traction as underdog opponent Dave Richards scored the upset victory against the defending race winner.
Beckman will enter the six-race playoff as the No. 5 seed trailing teammate Ron Capps by 60 points or three rounds of racing. Beckman finishes the 2016 regular season with a mark of 25 round wins, 17 losses, one race win, three runners-up and four No. 1 qualifiers.
"We're going to be optimistic," Beckman said of the Countdown to the Championship. "We've got six races left. We're not going in as a top-two seed and we're going to have to execute flawlessly the next six races and there's no group of people I'd rather surround myself with than this group on the Infinite Hero team. Bad weekend at Indy, but good things ahead for the Infinite Hero car.
"We've been on the other side of this, last year we surrendered an enormous point's lead. This year Capps and the NAPA has to do the same thing. Our goal is to concentrate on round wins. I'm not even concerned with race trophies right now, just round wins."
The six-race Countdown to the Championship playoff begins at zMAX Dragway at Concord, N.C., near Charlotte, on Sept. 16.
 |
| Photo Credit: Auto Imagery |
FULL ARTICLE
